Hidden Senshi: An Empress's Desire
by Prussian Blue Love
Summary: Crystal Tokyo is a peaceful place. That is, until four new sailor senshi appear and tell Neo-Queen Serenity that a new enemy is coming. rated T, just in case of language
1. Chapter 1

"Your Highness." Sailor Mercury said, bowing slightly before her queen.

"Yes, Mercury?" Neo-Queen Serenity responded, looking up from her book.

"I have news about those objects we detected yesterday." Mercury said. The Queen nodded for her to continue. "They're not slowing down and continuing their path towards Crystal Tokyo."

"And Uranus and the others are certain they didn't come from outside the solar system?" the Queen asked. Mercury nodded. Serenity looked down seriously. "Have they been able to stop them?"

Mercury shook her head. "Any attack they've thrown at them has been deflected. Pluto suggested that we prepare for impact and a possible enemy."

The Queen rubbed her temples and sighed heavily, "Pluto knows what she's talking about. Inform the others and get ready. Have you told the King?"

"Yes, he was with me when we found out. I'll go prepare the others." The senshi bowed once more before leaving the room. Serenity sighed once more after she left and rested her head on her table in discontent.

*~* *~* *~*

Just pass the moon, four pod-like objects hurtled towards the Earth. Far behind them, perched on an asteroid, stood two Sailor senshi. They watched the objects with annoyance. Their attempts to stop, or at least slow, the objects had no effect. There was nothing they could do now except hope that their comrades on Earth could handle it.

The objects entered the Earth's atmosphere over the capital city Crystal Tokyo. They impacted on a cliff a little ways outside the city. Once the dust cleared and the debris settled one could see a strange aura pulsing from each one of them. The aura began to dissipate after a few minutes and began to open from the top. From the four objects rose a person, each sporting a sailor uniform.

"Good lord, what a trip." Said one. She was tall, olive skinned, and wearing a pale yellow and lavender colored sailor uniform. She ran her fingers through her black and blonde hair, taming it to an extent. "Where's my javelin?" she started to rummage in her pod.

"Where are we?" asked another. "This doesn't look like the Moon." She narrowed her brown eyes as she scanned the area and crossed her copper arms over her crimson and goldenrod outfit.

"Of course it's not. Don't you remember what the Queen told us? This is Earth, and that is Crystal Tokyo." Said the third. She was the shortest of the four and sported a grey and silver uniform. She was trying to fix her mussed black and silver hair.

The fourth stood at the edge of the cliff, clutching her trident and looking over the city. The sun glistened on her ultramarine and spring green garb. She looked back at the others. "We should find her. We need to let her know." The other two nodded.

"Found it!" the first one cried, holding up a javelin. She smiled brightly at their serious looks.


	2. Chapter 2

"Well this is certainly a beautiful city." The blonde haired one said. The four sailor soldiers were walking through the main part of Crystal Tokyo on their way to the palace.

"Yes, it is. Though I could do without the stares." Commented the one with brown eyes. She glared at a couple staring at them and placed her hand on the sword at her hip.

The one with the trident put her hand on the other's arm. "No. We are not doing anything stupid. We are warriors in the Queen's court. We do not harm citizens. Even if the staring is annoying."

"You have to remember," The fourth said, "No one's ever seen us before. I mean, even the Princess wasn't aware of our existence. Remember?" The brown-eyed one nodded, as her comrade was correct, and removed her hand from her sword.

"Are we almost there?" she asked.

"Yes, there's the palace now." Answered the blue and green clad soldier. "Oh, look. A welcoming party."

Standing outside the doors to the palace stood four sailor senshi. They looked anything but welcoming.

"Ah, the Guardians. Figures we'd run into them first." The blonde said. "Do you think we'll have to fight them?" she smiled at the prospect of battle.

"No. Not unless they attack first. And then we do not kill." Said the trident-wielder. The blonde one's smile fell a little. "If I remember correctly, Venus is their leader."

At that moment, the senshi in question stepped forward. "Who are you?" she demanded.

"We need to see the Queen." The brown-eyed one replied.

"No one sees the Queen. Not without clearing themselves through us first." Venus said, "State your business." She eyed the four strangers cautiously. Their sailor uniforms threw her off a bit, but she knew to be careful. After Galaxia all those years ago, it was clear that just being a sailor senshi did not make one trustful or good.

"You matter nothing to us. Our business is with the Queen." the other said.

"Shouldn't we at least introduce ourselves?" the shortest one whispered to her teammate. "Maybe then they won't be as hostile."

Her teammate shook her head, "It doesn't matter. They're not even supposed to know about us, remember? The less they know the better."

While those two were whispering together, the four Guardian senshi took the opportunity to also talk amongst themselves.

"Mercury, can you get anything off them?" Venus asked.

"No, I can't. My computer can't read the slightest bit of data off them. And our system has no information on them either." Mercury said, disappointed. "Mars, do you sense anything?"

Mars shook her head, "Nothing. I can't even sense their power. It's like they're just regular people. Except for the fact that they're dressed like us of course."

"We need to find out who they are and what they want with the Queen. If that means we have to fight them, the so be it." Venus said firmly. The others nodded in agreement. They turned back towards the strange sailors.

"I'll ask once more. Who are you?" Venus asked. "If you don't answer me, then we'll have to fight you."

The strangers exchanged glances with each other. The trident-wielder sighed. She said something inaudible to the other three. They disappeared, only to then reappear in front of the Guardian senshi, weapons raised in fighting positions. The Guardian senshi quickly got out of the way, narrowly escaping harm.

"Lava Fountain Shower!" shouted the brown-eyed one, thrusting her hand in the air. Lava gushed forth into the air and rained down on the Guardian senshi.

"Mercury Aqua Rhapsody!" Mercury countered. The lava cooled and fell harmlessly around them. As quickly as that attack was handled, a lightning bolt shot at them from nowhere. It struck true and the senshi fell to the ground. The blonde one smiled viciously.

"So, you like to play with lightning, do ya?" Sailor Jupiter said. She rose from the ground shakily. "Sparkling Wide" electricity began to surround her "Pressure!"

"Lightning Javelin Shock!" the other cried. She hurled her javelin and it became a bolt of lightning as flew through the air.

The two attacks met in the middle and hit each other with such a force that it knocked both of the warriors onto their knees. Jupiter's teammates had gotten up at this point and were fighting one of the other fighters on their own.

"Venus Love and Beauty Shock!" Venus aimed her attack at the trident-wielder.

It struck her in the chest, smashing her against the wall of the palace. The trident-wielder slowly got up and stuck a battle pose, a bitter smile on her face. "Quicksilver Orb!" A sphere of quicksilver gathered at the point of her trident. When it was big enough, she propelled it at Venus. The sphere hit Venus around the waist, where it continued to grow and engulf her. Venus struggled to remove it from her, but it was stuck fast and soon had her trapped. Her opponent watched on as the orb swallowed her up.

The other senshi weren't fairing well either. The strange sailor outfitted adversaries were slowly but surely wearing down the senshi. Nothing they did seemed to stop them. It appeared that the Guardian senshi were going to lose to these new found opponents.

From a window high above the battle, Princess Lady Serenity watched. She couldn't see exactly who the enemy was, but she could tell that her friends weren't doing so well against them. She winced when Mars took a hard blow from one of them. When she watched as Jupiter fall to the ground, half frozen in ice, she knew she had to go down and help. Grabbing her compact, she rushed towards the front door. Halfway there she noticed the presence of her guardian soldiers, the Sailor Quartette, behind her. She was almost to the door, ready to transform, when her mother stepped out and motioned for her to stop.

"Mother! Please!" the Princess cried. Neo-Queen Serenity shook her head and smiled at her daughter. Princess Lady Serenity clutched her compact tightly to her chest as she watched her mother open the door and step outside to the fray.

Neo-Queen Serenity looked around briefly to survey the fight. Her heart hurt to see her friends in such a state. "Stop!" she yelled. No one heard her. The enemy continued to attack. "Stop!" she tried again, much louder. Still her cries went unheard. Getting angry, she picked up a rock and threw it at the closest enemy. "Stop it!" she bellowed.

The opponent whom the rock had hit stopped mid-attack and looked over at the Queen. Her eyes went wide when she saw the Queen and she quickly discontinued her assault. She whistled to the others, who also noticed the Queen, and they too stopped. Venus and the others were confused by their sudden pause. Looking around, they saw the Queen standing in the doorway and quickly gathered around her to protect her.

"What is going on here?" the Queen asked softly. You could hear the anger barely contained in her voice. "Who are you?"

The trident-wielding enemy dropped to her knee, closely followed by the other three. "We are Sailor senshi, members of the court of Queen Serenity of the Moon Kingdom."

"What?" The Queen asked, confused. "What do you mean you're members of Queen Serenity's court? I've never seen you before and I have regained all of my memories of the Moon Kingdom over the years."

"Yes. We have been awakened to resume our duties." The trident-wielder said. "We know you have never heard of us, Your Majesty. It is our nature to be unknown to everyone but the Queen of the Moon Kingdom. Your mother was going to tell you about us when you were of age."

"But that obviously didn't happen." The blonde one muttered. The trident-wielder shot her a look.

The Queen narrowed her eyes at them. "If you are truly part of the Silver Millennium, then why did you attack my soldiers?"

"Like I said, it is our nature to be unknown. Telling them anything about us would break that. Besides, in our defense, Venus herself said that if we didn't tell her who we were there would be a fight." Explained the trident-wielder. Venus nodded in agreement to the Queen.

"All right, but I haven't forgiven you for this and I don't trust you." The Queen said. "What are your names?" she asked.

The trident-wielder stood up. "I am Sailor Ganymede, codename Blood Puppeteer."

"I am Sailor Io, codename Golden Caldera." The brown-eyed one introduced herself as she stood up.

"My name is Sailor Callisto, codename Copper Paroxysm." Said the blonde, as she too rose from the ground.

"And I am Sailor Europa, codename Killing Frost." Introduced the shortest of them all. She also stood up from her kneeling position.

Looking warily at the new senshi, she asked, "How can I trust that you are truly who you say you are? What can you do to prove you are of the Silver Millennium?"

The new senshi looked at each other. They hadn't thought of that. Sailor Callisto shrugged her shoulders sheepishly at the Queen. Serenity sighed and looked at Mercury for any suggestions or ideas. Mercury shook her head. She too couldn't think of anything that could prove their claim.

"Mother?" asked a voice from the door. Neo-Queen Serenity and the others turned around to see the Princess standing in the doorway. "I have an idea. Remember when the Black Moon Clan attacked and I became Black Lady? Well when I was part of the Clan, the palace rejected me because I wasn't part of the Silver Millennium anymore. Maybe the same principle would work for them too. If they're not part of the Silver Millennium, the palace will reject them. If they are, then it won't."

"That's a good idea, Small Lady." The Queen smiled at her daughter. Turning back to the Galilean senshi she said, "If you would, please." She stepped aside to let them try and enter through the door.

The senshi confidently walked towards the door. They had no reason to expect being rejected by the palace. Io was the first one to pass her foot through the threshold. Nothing happened. They continued through the door and still nothing happened.

Sailor Europa turned around once they had fully entered the palace. "See? Told you." She smirked.

"I guess they were telling the truth." Jupiter said a little bitterly. She looked angrily at them.

"Jupiter." Neo-Queen Serenity said warningly. Jupiter stifled any other remark she had in mind to say. "You said you were awakened to resume your duties. What exactly are your duties and why did my mother wait to tell me about you?" she asked.

"Your Highness, if you don't mind, we'd rather discuss that in private with you." Sailor Ganymede answered. "It's of a sensitive nature." She added.

The Queen stared at them for a moment. Then she sighed. "Fine. But my King will be present for this also." She turned to the Princess. "Small Lady, please go find your father and tell him to meet me in my office."

"Yes mother." Small Lady said before dashing off into the palace.

"Now, this way." The Queen walked off into the palace. The senshi bowed as she passed them before following her.

"I don't like them." Sailor Mars said. She watched them turn the corner behind the Queen.

Venus rested her head on Mars' shoulder. "I know. I don't either. But we didn't like Uranus and Neptune much in the beginning either. Maybe it'll turn out ok in the end."


	3. Chapter 3

King Endymion stood in his wife's office waiting for her. He was anxious, and not a good anxious, to meet these new senshi. That the palace hadn't rejected them was comforting, but that they had attacked the Guardians was unsettling to him. His lavender cape gently swished along the ground as he wandered around the office, looking at the books and knickknacks Serenity had.

The door opened quietly behind him. Neo-Queen Serenity walked in, followed by the new senshi. The Queen's face was grim and her shoulders were tense. Endymion knew she was doing her best to remain collected. He looked at her with concern, but she waved it off for the moment with a minuscule shake of her head. After he helped her to the seat behind the desk, Endymion turned his attention to the senshi.

The tallest of the four drew his gaze first. Her skin was copper in complexion and her expression was very serious, with a slight look of disdain in her brown eyes. Endymion made note of the sword that hung at her waist, along with the other weapons they were carrying. Next to her was the trident-wielder. He assumed she was their leader; the way she carried herself was similar to that of Sailor Venus. The trident-wielder was currently busy trying to keep the senshi across from her quiet. The senshi in question was cheerful looking; her olive face seemed to always have a smirk on it. She carried a javelin with her and she seemed to have a habit of spinning the point on the ground in front of her. The King winced inwardly at the damage to the marble floor. The fourth and last senshi was the grey and silver clad one. She looked around the office with curiosity and nervously scratched at her arm. Endymion noticed that she too had a weapon; the hilts of daggers poked neatly out from her bun. This one caught him looking and she smiled shyly at him. The King quickly looked away and brought his attention back to the Queen.

Neo-Queen Serenity sat at her desk looking over the unfamiliar senshi. They patiently waited for her to break the silence. "So, what is the reason you have awakened and what are your duties?" The Queen asked once again.

"Part of our purpose, Your Highness, is to act as a covert unit whose duty is to eliminate any and all threats to the Moon Kingdom outside our solar system. We function similar to Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus, but we are able to leave the Sol system and remove the threat before it reaches us." Ganymede explained.

"And the other part of your purpose?" The Queen inquired.

Ganymede sighed heavily before she began. "Along with keeping the Moon Kingdom and the royal family safe from outside adversaries, it is our job to get rid of any violent, radical organizations within the Kingdom itself. For instance, during the incident with Beryl back when the Moon Kingdom was destroyed, had we had been there it would have been our job to eradicate Beryl and her ilk as soon as we heard about them. Same for the rebellious Black Moon Clan. It's not a pleasant thing, but necessary for the survival of the Kingdom."

"Basically what you're saying is that you're assassins?" Endymion asked tersely. Sailor Ganymede nodded slowly.

"Those who knew about us called us the Queen's executioners." Sailor Io said seriously.

Endymion and Serenity exchanged perturbed glances. "But why would something like that be necessary?" Serenity asked.

"Because, Your Highness, your mother might have been powerful, but she hated to kill. Even if it was necessary." answered Sailor Io. "And we are needed now because you are very much like your mother, if the Black Moon incident is to show."

The Queen bristled slightly at the remark. "All right, but what's the point in awakening now and returning to us? You're a little late by my measure." She practically snapped.

"We know. For some reason, we didn't awaken until now…we don't know why." Ganymede said, apologetically.

"How do you know about what happened with the Black Moon Clan anyways?" the King inquired.

"When we awakened, the spirit of Queen Serenity spoke to us and told us of everything that has happened since we were sealed away. She also told us of a new threat to the Kingdom." responded Europa.

"And what would that be?" the Queen looked intently at the senshi.

"Three enemies are on their way here…presumably to either steal the Ginzuishou or kidnap a member of the royal family. We don't exactly know which their objective is, but we do know they are hostile and should be dealt with…severely." Sailor Callisto said as she grinned, an almost sadistic glint in her eye.

The Queen suppressed a shudder at seeing the look in Callisto's eye. She thought about what she had heard. It had been a long time since there was any true evil threatening them. Relatively small disputes that could be handled with negotiation and discussion had been going on throughout Serenity's reign, but there hadn't been a full out enemy since the Black Moon Clan. Serenity looked over at her husband to see how he was taking all this. The King looked angry, but collected. She could almost see the thoughts running through his mind.

"Your Highness?" Ganymede hesitantly said. The Queen looked up at her. "If you'd like, we can leave you alone while you digest all this."

"No. We need to deal with this new enemy now." Serenity said firmly. "Do you know anything else about them?"

"We believe they are the agents of someone we have dealt with before, during the Moon Kingdom. There was a ruler from across the galaxy that tried to steal the Ginzuishou from Queen Serenity. They sent their warriors a few times, but we always defeated them. After a while, they gave up." Callisto informed. "We think that this person is trying again, given that the Ginzuishou has become significantly more powerful since the time of Queen Serenity."

"I see…" Serenity said slowly. She leaned back in her chair and put her finger tips up to her mouth, lightly resting them there. "And you know nothing of when we should be expecting an attack? Or how we should fight them?"

Callisto shook her head. "Sorry to say, but no. Our best bet is to wait and hope we can detect and deal with them in the outer solar system. So Uranus and Neptune should be informed as soon as possible. Saturn too, if she hasn't gone back to sleep, that is."

"We'll do that as soon as we're done here. Is there nothing else you can tell us?" Endymion said. All four women shook their heads. The King sighed. "All right then. I will go let Uranus and Neptune what is going on and then get someone to provide you with accommodations." He squeezed Serenity's shoulder before he walked out of the room.

The senshi waited quietly for the Queen to say something. Serenity was still leaning back in her chair, a look of somber pensiveness on her face. After a moment she leaned forward and spoke to them. "I understand that in the past you were kept hidden from the others, but things have changed since my mother's time. After I dismiss you, I will be talking to the Guardian senshi about who you are and the part you play in our kingdom. They have a right to know; especially after what happened earlier."

"We understand, Your Highness." Ganymede said stiffly. "Where would you like us to go? I would assume that we should be close by in case you need us."

"Wait outside the office until someone comes to let you know where you'll be staying and then stay there until you're sent for. I think that would be best for now." The Queen replied.

Ganymede nodded and they began to rise from their seats. Before they could leave the room, the Queen stopped them. "Before you go, I have one more question. What is with the names you gave earlier? The codenames."

Sailor Europa answered, "Back when we served Queen Serenity, those were the names she used for discussing us without revealing who we truly were. The Queen didn't want people to know there were other sailor senshi." She smiled a little bitterly. "She sometimes called us her Hidden senshi."

"I see." Serenity said. She thought about it for a moment. "All right, that's all I needed. You may go now."

They left the room and stood against the wall opposite the office door. Not too long after a pleasant looking maid came for them and showed them to the rooms where they would be staying. The maid told them that she would come get them either when the Queen or King needed them or when it was time for dinner. Curtseying slightly, she left them alone.

"That went better than I thought." Callisto said as she plopped down into a plush chair.

"Yes, I suppose it could have gone worse." agreed Ganymede. She stood by the door, clutching her trident as she looked around the room.

"It would have been better if we hadn't have had to fight the Guardians." Europa said. She had made herself comfortable on a couch. "That doesn't exactly put us in a good light."

"The Guardians will get over it. Not like we're here to make friends or anything." Io said dismissively as she watched the city from the window.

"I don't care about them. I care about what the Queen thinks of us." Europa said crossly. "We come out of nowhere, attack her most trusted warriors, and then dump that load on her. I wouldn't be surprised if she completely ignores us after this is all over." She added dejectedly.

Callisto laughed. "You only worry about that because you've been head-over-heels for Queen Serenity's daughter since you first saw her back during the Silver Millennium."

Europa blushed fiercely and stuttered out a response, "S-so? Th-that hasn't got anything to do with anything!" she looked down at the floor miserably. "It's not like it matters. What I, or any of us, feel isn't important. Our purpose is to serve the Queen….and to ensure the continuation of the Moon matriarchy."

"Europa…" Ganymede said softly. She began to put a comforting hand on the other senshi's shoulder, but she stood up quickly and began to walk towards the bedroom. "Where are you going?"

"To bed. I'm tired." She answered shortly. "Wake me when the maid comes back, will you?"

When Europa shut the door behind her, Ganymede turned furiously to Callisto. "What's the matter with you? You know better then to say anything about that. You know how hard it is for her."

"How the hell was I supposed to know she'd get like that? Thought she'd be over her by now; or at least able to take a joke." Callisto said defensively. Ganymede shook her head angrily and turned away. Callisto crossed her arms and fumed silently.

Breaking the tense silence, Io wondered aloud, "I wonder how the Guardians are going to take it."


	4. Chapter 4

The Guardians, at that moment, were taking the information surprisingly well, Neo-Queen Serenity noticed. She had expected someone to make some sort of exclamation, but no one did. They sat in their chairs, mulling it over.

"Do you have anything to say?" The Queen asked.

"This…this is quite a lot to think about." Mercury said quietly. The others nodded.

"I don't get it." Venus said. "If they're supposed to be on our side, why did they attack us?"

"Well, we did say that if they weren't going to talk to us, we'd have to fight them." Mars commented.

Venus scowled. "I don't care. They could have left."

"Your Highness, you're not seriously saying we have to work with them, are you?" asked Jupiter.

The Queen sighed. "Yes. I am. I know you don't like it, but they are senshi of the Silver Millennium. And I hate to admit it, but they are needed for this."

"But why are they needed for this? You have us, and the Quartette, and Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Saturn. Why do we need them to help?" Venus demanded to know.

"Because they know more about this than we do. They have far more experience with this sort of thing." Serenity explained.

"I don't like this. Not one bit." Venus said. "And I don't trust them."

"To be honest, Venus, I don't completely trust them either." Serenity said.

"If you don't trust them, then why are you letting them stay? Why let them into our kingdom?" inquired Mars. She looked pointedly at the Queen.

"Because they are part of our kingdom. Whether we like it or not, the palace did not reject them. We didn't know about the senshi of the outer solar system for a very long time either and Pluto herself was meant to be kept undisclosed to us. It shouldn't be that much of a surprise that there's some new senshi from the Silver Millennium." Answered the Queen. "I'm not saying you have to like them or anything, I'm just saying that they are part of our kingdom and will be helping us."

The Guardians sat silently. They couldn't argue with the Queen, what she had said was true. It shouldn't be that surprising, the existence of these new senshi, but it still was. They were still angry with the new senshi for earlier. It would take a very long time to forgive them, much less trust them.

"I suppose we don't have much of a choice then." Jupiter said suddenly. She stood up from her seat. "If you don't mind, Your Highness, I need to go think about this by myself for a while." When the Queen nodded, she left the room.

"You're all welcome to leave if you want." Serenity said to the other three.

"Thank you." Venus stood, bowed to the Queen, and left. She was followed shortly by Sailor Mars.

"Your Highness, I was wondering about this new enemy Ganymede and the others say is coming." Mercury said. "Do we really not know anything other than what they've told us?"

"We really don't know. Given that my mother kept these senshi secret, it doesn't surprise me that she wasn't telling people about everything that was going on; including this enemy that supposedly has tried before." Serenity said. "I wish we knew more though…it would be nice to not be in the dark about it."

Mercury nodded, "True, it would be nice. But at least we know a little bit, so we can try to prepare. That's one good thing."

"Yes, you're right." Serenity smiled a little. "How are you handling this?" she asked, concerned.

"Better than I thought I would." She answered after a moment. "I don't trust or like them any more than the others, but I do understand why we didn't know about them. And I do agree with you, we probably will need them for this new enemy. I don't like to say it, but if you hadn't shown up earlier, Your Highness, we would have lost. They're very powerful."

"They are." Serenity agreed. The two were quiet, thinking. Minutes passed before the Queen stood up. "It's almost dinner time. We should get going." She smiled brightly at her old friend, who returned the smile. The left the office together, chatting about things that weren't so serious.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Dinner time was a tense affair. The new senshi weren't any more open then they were before and the Guardian senshi weren't any more forgiving. The Queen tried to break the tension with light humor here and there, but she failed. Even the King and Princess were more somber than usual.

"Um, can I ask something?" Europa hesitantly spoke. The Queen nodded. "Do you guys normally de-transform?" she looked curiously at the Guardian senshi.

"Only when we're in the palace and only if we don't need to be transformed." Mars answered. "Do you normally stay in your fuku?"

"Well, yes. We've always remained in our fuku. It's always been like that." Europa replied. She thought for a second. "I don't even know if we can de-transform."

Mars shrugged and went back to eating. Europa watched her for a moment before returning her attention to her plate as well; disappointed she couldn't engage the other senshi in conversation. The rest of the time went silently. The rest of the time went silently. Not too long after, the royal family excused themselves and left. The senshi finished their supper quickly. With the calming presence of the King and Queen gone, no one trusted what would happen if they were all left alone for too long.

Another maid came up to the new senshi with a note in her hand. Ganymede took it from her and thanked her. The maid curtsied and went back to her post by the door. Ganymede read it and then passed it off to Io, who was sitting next to her. The note made its way around to Europa and Callisto before returning to Ganymede, who gestured to the maid by the door.

"Please tell His Highness that we'd be delighted to do as he has requested." She said. "And please make sure that someone will be able to show us to this place tomorrow." She showed the note to the maid, who nodded pleasantly and assured the sailor solider that she would.

"What does the King want?" Mercury asked Ganymede politely.

"A demonstration of our powers, that's all." Ganymede answered. She rose from her seat and the other new senshi followed suit. "I'm sure you'll want to come and watch." She said as she and the others left the room, leaving the Guardian senshi to themselves.

"That should be interesting." Jupiter said. She sat back in her chair and looked scornfully at the door where the new senshi had just left from. Turning to the others, she asked, "Any of you going to watch?"

Venus sighed. "We should. If anything it should give us an idea of exactly what we're dealing with. It would be a perfect time for Mercury to get some kind of data off them. Wouldn't it?" she asked the blue haired senshi, who nodded.

"I'm actually looking forward to it. It really would be nice to have some new data to analyze." Mercury said wistfully. "Well, it would!" she said defensively when she saw the looks on her friends' faces.

Mars stood up. "Well, we'd better get some rest. I have a feeling that tomorrow is going to be a long day."


	5. Chapter 5

The afternoon of the next day, King Endymion waited for Ganymede and the others to arrive. The Guardian senshi were waiting patiently with him, along with Luna and Artemis. The cats were busy setting up the training simulation. They were anxious to meet the new senshi. Neo-Queen Serenity told them about Ganymede and the others and asked if they remembered anything about them, but neither Luna nor Artemis knew anything.

"They're a tad late." Venus commented, looking at the clock on the wall.

Mercury looked up from her book. "They probably got lost. The palace is confusing for newcomers."

"I know. I was just saying, that's all." Venus said. A few minutes later, the new senshi walked in.

"Sorry we're late. We got lost." Europa apologized sheepishly.

"It's all right. At least you managed to find your way here." The King said gently.

"So, what exactly do you have planned?" Sailor Io asked, getting straight to business. "I don't assume you'll be wanting us to spar with them, do you?" She nodded over at the Guardians.

"No. We have a training program for this sort of thing. You'll be fighting simulated opponents." The King explained, gesturing to the complex computer system. "Oh, yes, and this is Artemis and Luna." The cats looked up from their programming. Artemis flashed a brief smile.

"You don't remember us, do you?" Callisto asked the cats.

"Well…no, we don't." Luna said.

"Did we know you during the Silver Millennium?" asked Artemis.

Callisto nodded, "You two and the Queen, and maybe Sailor Pluto, were the only ones who knew about us. But it's ok that you don't remember. Queen Serenity probably made it that way for a reason." She smiled brightly at them and turned back to the King. "So, when do we start?"

"Whenever you're ready. I would like if you went one by one, so we can focus on your abilities individually." Endymion said.

"Sweet. I'll go first then, if you guys don't mind." Callisto looked over at her teammates, who motioned for her to go. A smile on her face, she walked into the simulation room. She gave Luna a thumbs up to let them know she was ready.

Luna flipped the switch that started the simulation. A false scene appeared, the room taking on the appearance of a cratered and scorched battlefield. Computer replicated people manifested around her, each holding some kind of deadly looking weapon. Two of them charged at Callisto, who nimbly jumped away. She landed on her feet behind the surrounding group. She raised her javelin, yellow electricity gathering around it.

"Lightning Javelin Strike!" she cried as she threw it through the air. It became a bolt of lightning as it flew and struck one of the opponents that charged her. The opponent was vaporized in a flash of light. Turning to the ones who had just appeared behind her, she held up an open hand to them, "Electromagnetic Field, Enclose!" a bubble of yellow energy encircled the opponents, little discharges of electricity coming off it surface. "Crush!" Callisto closed her hand into a fist and the bubble closed around the opponents with it, effectively crushing them.

One of the simulated people rushed towards her and managed to strike her with its club. Callisto fell to the ground, but rolled quickly out of the way before it struck her again. Seeing her javelin across the false scene, she leapt over the opponent, using its head as leverage, and dashed to grab her weapon. Once she had it in her grasp, she used it to destroy the offending club-wielder. Ten more opponents attacked her, all at once. One was able to knock the javelin out of her hand and her to the ground as she tried to get away. They raised their weapons, but Callisto cried out with an attack, "Callisto Electric Paroxysm!" The opponents fell to the ground, convulsing uncontrollable. Callisto stood up, and looked at the remaining opponents. They hesitated a bit, unsure whether to risk suffering a seizure or not. Callisto smiled darkly at them, outstretching both hands.

"Callisto Static Shock!" she shouted. A streak of electricity shot from her hands towards the opponents. As it flew, it split into multiple bolts, each one hitting an opponent; they fell to the ground, unconscious. She looked around, expecting more opponents to fight, but none appeared. The room went back to normal.

"Very good. You can come out now." Said Luna's voice over a speaker.

"So…what'd'cha think?" Callisto said perkily as she came back into the control room.

"Did you…did you cause a seizure in them?" Mercury said incredulously.

She nodded. "Yup. I sure did. Hey, it's not that great. Europa over there can make people go insane." She hitched her thumb at her grey clad teammate.

Said teammate blushed when all eyes in the room turned to her. "It's not that big of a deal. I don't use that attack very often." She said sheepishly.

"But you can do it." Venus said pointedly. Europa nodded. "I gotta see this. Can you go next?"

Europa sighed and went into the simulation room. She waved dismissively at Luna for her to start it up. Another false scene appeared. This time it was a lush forest, full of trees and other plant life. Europa waited alertly for her opponents to appear. As she stood there, three simulated opponents dropped from the trees, attacking. Europa dodged them, pulling out the daggers in her hair as she went. She stabbed one in the stomach and drew the blade across, gutting it. The second one she kicked soundly in the throat as it tried to cut her with its sword. The third opponent didn't move until she had incapacitated the other two. To that one she simultaneously stabbed it in the stomach and heart. It fell to the ground, dead, and vanished.

When those three were gone, more opponents revealed themselves. They surrounded her and charged. She jumped up out of the way onto a tree branch above her. From that vantage point she manifested a snowflake in her hand. "Winter's Kiss!" she said before she kissed it, and sent it towards some the opponents, who fell to the ground shivering and turning blue before they passed out.

The others, who weren't hit by her attack, shot up to her level to fight her. Some of them threw projectiles at her, but she dodged these as well.

"Europa Hoarfrost Freeze!" she cried as she evaded their assaults. The opponents were frozen solid and fell to the ground heavily. Landing gracefully on the ground, she turned her attention to the others. Flipping her daggers so that the blades were pointing towards herself, she slashed at the air, crying, "Blizzard of Lost Souls!" A rip open in the air, cold air and snow escaping. The opponents were sucked into the rip and it closed up. She was putting her daggers back into her hair when the remaining opponents charged her, catching her off guard. They pinned her to a tree with their weapons. Europa struggled angrily to get loose, but couldn't. One of them raised their blade as if to stab her.

"Europa Ice Angels…" she started. The one with the raised blade started to thrust its blade toward her heart. "Scream!" In the air around them, multiple angel figures, apparently made of ice, appeared. A terrible noise emanated from them. The opponents dropped their weapons and clutched at their ears, some falling to the ground writhing. After a bit the angles disappeared. Their affect on the opponents was dramatic. Some of them wandered around, confused and talking nonsense; others laughed at something no one else could see, while others still screamed and ran in terror from some invisible monster. The simulation ended soon after and Europa was released from her confinement. She returned to the control room.

"So…yeah." Europa said to the silent room. "I told you I don't use that one a lot." She added. The Guardian senshi gave her a wide berth as she went back over to her teammates. Ganymede gave her a small pat on the shoulder.

"I'll go. This shouldn't take long." Sailor Io said, stepping forward. The scene for her simulation was a coast, a fake ocean crashing on virtual sand. Her opponents manifested behind her and immediately began to attack.

"Io Lava Dome!" She said, raising her hand in front of her. Lava flowed from her hand and hardened into a shield-like dome. Pulling her sword from her waist, she was able to counter their attacks. More adversaries took the fallen ones places.

"Pyroclastic Gases Suffocate!" Io yelled. Noxious gas billowed around her opposing combatants, who proceeded to choke and suffocate on it. Some of them managed to escape the gas, but they were shot down by her lava fountain attack. Even more simulated adversaries took their place. Sighing, Io placed the tip of her sword on the ground behind her, "Io Fissure Vent," she began scrape the sword across the ground with some force, "Gape!" Roughly swinging the sword up, the scratch it made on the ground continued towards the opponents, widening and deepening as it went, and hot magma escaping to the surface as they fell in. The magma cooled over the rift and the simulation ended.

Ganymede walked into the room to take Io's place. A space scene appeared. Positioning herself in a fighting stance with her trident, Ganymede patiently waited for her computer generated enemies. She didn't have to wait long, the came into sight almost instantly.

"Ganymede Sinuous Tsunami!" she shouted, not giving them a chance to attack first. A wave of twisted water pounded her would be assailants. She quickly shot off a few of the quicksilver orbs she had used on Sailor Venus the other day. The opponents were soon engulfed in the liquid metal.

A foe had manifested itself directly behind Ganymede and struck her hard with its weapon on the shoulder. Clutching the injured area, she swiftly turned and swung at it with her trident. "Ganymede Liqueur Fountain!" Clear liquid sprang forth from the tips of the trident, showering the assaulter. Once it was done, said assaulter was unable to stand firmly and otherwise appeared to be drunk. She smiled, satisfied with the effect. Using the same opponent, she executed one more technique.

"Blood Marionette." She said. Using her hands, she was able to manipulate the opponent, as if it were attached to invisible strings, to attack and destroy the remaining enemies. Once they were gone, she once again manipulated it, but this time to attack itself. The room went back to normal after that, the simulation done.

"That was…impressive." Endymion said when Ganymede entered the control room.

"Yes, it was. I have lots of data to go over now, thank you." Said Mercury, who was typing away at her mini computer.

"Is that why you're called Blood Puppeteer?" Mars asked Ganymede.

"Yes. My codename is derived from my attack." Ganymede answered. She turned to the King. "Is there anything else you need from us, Your Highness?"

"No, I don' think ther—" he started. A loud beeping noise came from one of the computer screens on the control panel, interrupting him.

"I got it!" Artemis said, pressing a button. Sailor Neptune's face appeared on the screen. "Neptune, what is it?"

"We've just been attacked. An unidentifiable object made its way into the system and was heading for Crystal Tokyo. We managed to destroy it, but we're badly injured. Uranus and I are on our way to receive some medical attention and to deliver the remains of this thing for analysis." Sailor Neptune replied.

Artemis nodded seriously, "All right. We'll get the place ready for you two right away." He signed off. He pressed another button nearby. "Med unit, prepare for injured senshi. NOW."

"We should go and be there for them when they arrive. Hurry!" Luna said anxiously. She jumped off the control panel and rushed out. The others quickly followed.


	6. Chapter 6

Earlier

Sailor Neptune sat in front of her castle's main computer. She was going over the data from her latest routine sweep of the area. Everything was calm; the incident yesterday had been the most exciting thing that had happened in a while. King Endymion had told her, Uranus, and Pluto about what was going on with that. She was shocked at the news, but not terribly. She understood what it was like to be unknown to the others and even what it was like to attack the Guardians. She grimaced at that memory. At the time it was the best of their options, but it still made her uncomfortable. She also wasn't shocked when Pluto told her and Uranus later that she had known about these new senshi's existence. Pluto had an eerie omnipresent quality to her, but Neptune guessed that's what came from being the guardian of the Door of Space-Time, you just knew things.

Her thoughts were drifting off to old memories when there was a blip on the computer. Snapping back to the present, Neptune pulled up the screen. A spherical object was hurdling towards her planet. Swearing to herself, she quickly transformed into her fuku and alerted Uranus via her communicator. Entering the vacuum of space, she soon located the object and propelled herself towards it. The object, as if knowing she were there, shot out a beam of energy at her. This caught Neptune by surprise and it hit her in the shoulder.

"Ah!" she cried, clutching her shoulder. Blood seeped out from underneath her fuku. "Deep Submerge!" She threw her attack at the offending object. It hit dead on, but it appeared to do nothing. The object veered from its path and started coming directly at Neptune. She was able to get away before it ran into her and was ready for it when it shot off another energy beam.

"Neptune!" she heard Uranus call.

"Be careful! It's hostile!" Neptune warned.

The object turned around and was coming back towards the senshi of the seas. Neptune positioned herself in a fighting stance, her mirror held up in front of her. "Submarine Reflection!" A ray of energy blast forth from the mirror. The object fired its own energy as a counter. The two beams exploded when they hit each other, sending both Neptune and the object flying. Uranus caught her partner.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I don't know. It just appeared out of nowhere." Neptune answered. She sucked air through her teeth as her shoulder started to throb.

"Are you ok?" Uranus inquired, concerned. Neptune nodded. "You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. Please don't worry right now. We have to take care of that thing." The thing in question was once again coming towards the sailor senshi. Uranus materialized her sword into her hand. It was coming to them fast.

"Space Sword Blaster!" Uranus shouted. As she swung her sword, a blast of energy surged from it. It struck the object. Pieces of it were torn off from the force of her attack. However, it didn't stop and continued to come at them. They were able to get out of its way, but as it went past them, it discharged several energy beams. Uranus was able to dodge most of them, but Neptune wasn't so lucky. The object looped back around and started off toward Neptune, numerous blade-like objects protruding from its surface. Making a split-second decision, Uranus shoved Neptune out of the way.

Neptune watched in horror as her lover took the blow that was intended for her. "Uranus!" she screamed. The object continued to fly past them, resuming its original path. Furious, Neptune shot off after it. "Deep Submerge!" She summoned all the energy she could and launched it at the object. The power of her attack caused it to explode. The debris floated around the empty space, the object no more. Breathing heavily, Neptune flew back over to her injured partner. Uranus was hurt badly. Gathering her in her arms, Neptune took Uranus back to Triton castle.

"Nep…tune…" Uranus tried to say. Neptune hushed her. Once back in the castle, Neptune placed Uranus on a bed in her medical area. Looking at the wounds, she knew she wouldn't be able to properly take care of them.

"Neptune…you should…" Uranus tried again.

"Shush. You need to conserve your strength." Neptune admonished gently. She fretted internally about how she was going to help her partner. "I'm going to contact the Palace. I can't do this by myself." She started to leave, but Uranus grabbed her arm.

"You…should…get the pieces…of that thing." She strained to say. "We need to…know what it…is."

Neptune was going to refuse, going to tell her that her wounds needed to be attended to first, but was stopped by the fierce look in Uranus' eyes that she could never argue against. She sighed deeply, kissed her love on the forehead, and went back out to space to gather up the debris. As she was gathering, she noticed for the first time that her own injuries weren't bothering her. She figured the adrenaline was keeping the pain away for now.

When she returned, she went to her control room to call the Palace. After a few moments, Artemis' face appeared.

"Neptune, what is it?" he asked.

"We've just been attacked. An unidentifiable object made its way into the system and was heading for Crystal Tokyo. We managed to destroy it, but we're badly injured. Uranus and I are on our way to receive some medical attention and to deliver the remains of this thing for analysis." Sailor Neptune replied. The previously ignored injuries were starting to hurt, but she suppressed a grimace.

Artemis nodded seriously, "All right. We'll get the place ready for you two right away." He signed off.

Neptune practically ran to Uranus. Her eyes were closed, but she was breathing. Neptune sighed in relief. She gently picked her up, being careful not to drop her, snatched the bag of debris from where she had thrown it on the floor, and began her way to Earth and the Palace.


	7. Chapter 7

"There they are!" Jupiter shouted, pointing.

Sailor Neptune was slowly making her way up to the Palace. She had a dazed look on her face, the loss of blood making her dizzy. The Guardian senshi rushed up to her to help. Jupiter tenderly took Sailor Uranus out of her arms. When the weight of her lover's body was gone from her, Neptune collapsed. She was quickly caught up by Venus and Mars however, both of whom helped her along the last bit of the way to the Palace. Mercury picked up the bag Neptune had also been carrying and hurriedly followed. The two senshi were placed in the Palace's hospital area. The nurses and doctors were working swiftly to stop the bleeding and do all that needed to be done to get the senshi healed.

"I'm going to get this to the lab and start looking at it." Mercury said. She shouldered the bag and started to leave.

"Hey, can I help? I'm pretty good with that sort of thing." Callisto offered. Mercury gazed at her a moment before nodding.

It seemed like hours before the doctors concluded that Uranus and Neptune were stable. They would need extensive time to heal completely, but they would heal and there would be no permanent damage. Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.

"I know we should go help Mercury, but I feel like someone should stay here with them." Mars said softly, staring at the bodies of her fellow senshi.

"I can stay." Europa sullenly said. "The stuff that Mercury and Callisto do is over my head anyways. I'll just be in the way."

Venus sighed. "Fine. You can stay with them for us. If anything happens you let us know right away. Got it? Good."

They left Uranus and Neptune under the watch of Europa. She got a chair from one of the nurses' desks and sat between their beds. They were both unconscious and the medical staff more or less ignored her, so she stared at the ceiling and thought about things.

'Man, wish I had a book or something.' She thought, bored. She sighed and leaned back in the chair, tipping it slightly.

"Nep…tune…" Uranus said suddenly. Her voice surprised Europa enough to make her lose balance on the tipping chair and fall. "Where am I?" Uranus spoke again. Her deep blue eyes darted around the room, alert for any sign of danger.

"You're at the Palace, in the hospital." Europa replied as she stood up. "And Sailor Neptune is right here, in case you were wondering." She stepped aside so Uranus could see her fellow senshi. Upon seeing Neptune breathing softly, Uranus made an audible sigh of relief. Knowing her partner was safe and still alive, she turned her attention to the woman standing before her.

"So, who are you?" Uranus asked. "It's not everyday I wake up to find a strange person standing over me."

"Oh, um, I'm Sailor Europa." A slightly awkward silence followed. "So…yeah…I'm gonna let someone know you're awake."

"No, stay a moment. I have questions." Uranus tried to reach for her, but stopped, wincing in pain.

"Don't bloody move!" Europa cried, panicking. She carefully pushed Uranus' arm back to her side and sat back down in her chair. "So…questions?" She figured if she answered the questions, Uranus wouldn't try to move again.

"Yeah. To start off with, who exactly are you guys?"

"Um…didn't His Highness tell you?"

"Yes, he did, but I want to hear it from one of you."

"Well, uh, we're basically supposed to be the Queen's assassins and protectors. We kinda do what you and Neptune do in the outer solar system, but we often leave the system itself to do our job."

"Ok. What do you mean by assassins?"

"...we deal with rebels and other people within the kingdom who would want to overthrow or assassinate the Queen…"

"I see. Any particular reason you guys haven't shown up till now?"

"We don't know why not earlier, but there's some enemy that we've dealt with before trying to cause trouble again…so I guess that's why now."

"All right. I have one last question. Are you normally this nervous and shy?"

"Huh?!"

"With that kind of response, I take it you are. Well, that's all I got. You can go let someone know now."

Europa quickly left and alerted a doctor that Uranus was awake. After she had done that, she went to find the other senshi to let them know as well. It took her awhile to find the room they were in, but she managed to locate them. She knocked quietly on the door.

"Come in." Someone inside said. Europa entered the room. The Guardian senshi, Europa's comrades, and the King were gathered around a lab table made of crystal, examining the thing Neptune had brought back. Mercury was probing it with a complicated piece of equipment while Callisto sat in front of a computer, looking at data. The others were either murmuring softly amongst themselves or carefully peering at the object.

"Uranus woke up." She said.

"She did? Is she all right? Is Neptune awake?" Jupiter asked. She didn't wait for an answer. "Ah, never mind, I'll just go see them myself." She started towards the hospital area.

"Jupiter, wait up!" Venus called as her and the others went to catch up to Jupiter.

When they arrived, a doctor was checking on Uranus' condition. He smiled brightly at the King and senshi, and stepped aside a bit so they could see her. As he checked her vitals and looked at her chart, he explained to them that everything was doing good considering the heavy damage she had sustained. Once he was done, the doctor left them.

"Oh, Uranus! Are you ok?" Venus said with emotion. "What happened?"

Uranus nodded, "I'm ok. I'll admit I've been better, but I'm ok. As for what happened, well, I had gotten a message from Neptune via the communication watches that something was in the system. I went to go help her. The thing had already injured her by the time I got there. We battled it but got seriously wounded. Neptune destroyed it after I had gotten impaled by the thing."

"Yeah, we noticed the blades on it…" Mercury said softly. "We also found some kind of blaster like apparatus on it. Did this thing fire any projectiles or something?"

"Energy blasts. It shot off beams of energy. That's what mostly got Neptune. Have you found anything out about it?"

"Yes. Sailor Callisto," Mercury, gestured to the blonde senshi who waved cheerily, "confirmed for us that the technology is that of the enemy they had faced long ago."

"I see. That's good. At least now we know who we're up against so we can take them out." Uranus smiled a satisfied smile.

"Agreed. We'll let you rest now though. You are exhausted from battle and your wounds and we're making you talk. Get some sleep." Mars said tenderly. Uranus nodded gratefully and closed her eyes as she rested her head on the pillow.

"What do we do now?" Jupiter asked quietly, so as not to wake her fellow senshi.

"Simple." Ganymede said. "We will tell you all we know about this enemy. After that…we wait."


	8. Chapter 8

"What do you mean wait?" The King asked.

Ganymede glanced over at Sailor Uranus, "Perhaps we should have this conversation elsewhere." She left the room, heading back to the lab, not waiting to see if the others would follow; they did, of course.

"So, what do you mean by wait? Why do we have to wait?" the King asked again once they were in the lab.

"We wait because this enemy is too far away for us to get to them first. Also, given the vastness of space, we don't know which direction they're coming from. Mercury, do you happen to have any charts of the Milky Way?" Ganymede asked the blue-haired senshi.

"Hm? Oh, yes. I'll pull that up for you." Mercury said, typing away at the computer. A map of the entire galaxy appeared on the screen.

"Thank you. You see, this is where our solar system is." Ganymede pointed to a spot on the chart with her trident. "And this is the general area of where our enemy is from, somewhere in the Cygnus arm." She gestured at the area. "It's quite a ways away, even if they did travel against the rotation of the galaxy. Given this, it would be best to try to intercept them probably somewhere in the Oort cloud, before they can actually enter the system, instead of blindly trying to meet them halfway."

"That does make sense. With Neptune and Uranus out of commission for awhile, who will stand watch in the Oort cloud?" Mars asked.

"Most likely us and maybe you four or the Sailor Quartette. Pluto and Saturn aren't available to fight, are they?" Callisto inquired.

"They are. Diana, Luna and Artemis' daughter, often watches the Door for Pluto." answered Venus.

"All right. Then perhaps us and those two. That way, in case we fail to stop them, you and the Sailor Quartette will be here to fight." Ganymede said. "Does that work for you?"

"It sounds like a good plan. What do else do you know about them?" questioned Mercury.

"We don't really know much about them. What we told the Queen earlier is about it. That area of the galaxy is ruled by an empress, we don't know her name, and she has tried before to capture the Ginzuishou and failed is all we know. Who she'll send and when they'll come, is a mystery." replied Ganymede.

"Of course, since we have this…thing, we can assume her agents will be coming soon." Io added. "We should be ready as soon as possible."

"Understood. We'll let Pluto and Saturn know what's going on and get them in position." Mercury said. "…where do we want them in the Oort cloud anyway?" She asked after a moment, turning towards Ganymede.

"Hmm…perhaps Pluto at the top of the cloud and Saturn at the east position." Ganymede said, thinking. "I'll take the west position; Europa can take the north, Io the south, and Callisto the bottom."

"Mercury, you let Saturn know. I'll take them to Pluto and let her know what's going on." Endymion said. She nodded. He waved at Ganymede and the other three, wanting them to follow him.

He took the four senshi down a dark and deserted hallway in a remote part of the palace. It was a long hallway and it took several minutes to reach their destination. Before them stood a foreboding looking door, intricately and elegantly decorated. Endymion placed a hand on the door and it opened soundlessly. A sailor senshi stood in front of them, who knelt to the King when she saw him.

"Your Highness." She said solemnly.

"Sailor Pluto, hello." The King greeted. "We need you. Though, I'm sure you already knew that." He added humorously.

"Yes, I did. Small Lady here has filled me in on a few things. I surmised the rest." Pluto replied as she rose from the ground. The Princess peeked around the edge of the door and waved at her father. "Are these the new senshi I was told about?"

"Yes. This is Sailor Ganymede, Sailor Io, Sailor Callisto, and Sailor Europa." Each senshi greeted Pluto in some way as their name was said. "You, Saturn, and these four are going to be stationed along the Oort cloud in hopes of intercepting our new enemy. I'm sure Diana won't mind guarding the Door for you again."

"She won't mind. Will you, Diana?" Pluto asked the small grey cat that was sitting next to Small Lady. Diana shook her head pleasantly. "Thank you, Diana. We should leave presently then."

Ganymede explained to Pluto the strategy as they walked. "Should we fail; the Guardians and the Sailor Quartette will be here at the palace to take care of them." She was saying.

"That sounds like a sound plan. Has Saturn been notified?" Pluto asked.

"As we were coming to get you Mercury was trying to reach her." Endymion answered. "Let us know when you're in position."

"Of course, Your Highness." replied Pluto respectfully. Looking over at the other senshi she said, "Shall we use the Sailor Teleport to get to the Oort cloud?"

"Yes, that is probably the most effective way of getting there. We can split off to our own sectors after arriving." Ganymede agreed.

The senshi gathered in a circle and grasped hands with each other. Endymion stepped out of the way as they called on their power to transport themselves from the palace. There was a flash of bright light and then they were gone. The King stared up into the sky for a moment, sending good thoughts the senshi's way, before he returned to the palace.

* * *

**Short chapter, I know. Really sorry. I promise I'll try very hard to make the next one longer!**


	9. Chapter 9

It didn't take long for the senshi to arrive in the Oort cloud. The space around them was cold and dark. Billions of icy bodies surrounded them, floating lazily in space as they orbited around the Sun.

"All right, if my calculations are correct, we should be in Pluto's station." Ganymede said, looking around. "We'll go now to our positions. Nobody forget to let the others back at the palace know when you get there." The senshi nodded and split up, each going towards their designated point. Once there, they reported back their arrival to Sailor Mercury.

"So we just wait for them to show up now, is that right?" Callisto asked Ganymede via her communicator.

"Yes, that's correct. It could be a while, so make yourself comfortable." Ganymede answered.

"Comfortable, huh? The hell am I supposed to make myself comfortable floating in space?" Callisto mumbled to herself. She sighed, "Well, I guess this isn't any different than the old days, staking out a place waiting for someone to pwn."

She found a small clump of ice and rock to sit on and stared out into the darkness. It was only the faint light of the Sun behind her and the even paler glow of the thousands of other stars that allowed her to peer into the gloom. She played with her javelin, spinning its point on the ice, bored but alert to anything that moved. Hours passed. The only presences she could sense were that of her comrades, and they didn't seem to be doing much either.

"I am so bored!" Callisto shouted. She flopped over the clump of ice, her arms and legs dangling over the sides. "Maybe I should pick on Europa, that'll keep me amused." She flipped open the cover to her communicator, but before she could speak into it she suddenly felt a presence coming toward her from the void of space. "Never mind. Looks like there's something else fun to do." She said to herself as she sat up straight.

Closing her eyes to concentrate on the approaching presence, she could sense three individuals. They were too far for her to gauge their power accurately, but she could tell they were strong. A smile crept onto her face at the thought of fighting them.

Once they were close enough, Callisto could see that they too were sailor senshi. She didn't recognize any of them from the past, but she knew it had been several centuries since she had fought with the denizens of wherever they were from, so it was not unlikely that the enemy's roster had changed. The three surprised her by stopping just short of the Oort cloud. Obviously they had seen Callisto, but for whatever reason they did not attack or continue onward. Callisto gripped her javelin tightly as she observed and waited. Their approach confused her, something she didn't like.

'They're probably waiting for me to attack first. Or something equally asinine.' She thought. 'I could oblige them a fight…though I don't know if that would be a good idea. Damn it, why couldn't I be better at strategy?!'

She was too busy thinking of what to do to notice that one of the three had vanished from her sight. It wasn't until the enemy was directly in front of her that she snapped back to what was going on. Callisto quickly jumped back, putting space between them. The enemy before her was dressed in purple and carried a bow and a quiver of arrows.

The purple clad enemy drew an arrow from her quiver and pulled back her bow. "You have three seconds to move and let us through." She said, aiming the bow at Callisto.

"You have quite the sense of humor, don't you?" Callisto said jokily, raising her javelin, electricity crackling around it.

"Just shoot her and be done with it, will you!" one of the other enemies shouted.

"Your friend has the right idea." Callisto said. "Lightning Javelin Shock!" she threw the electrically charged javelin at her opponent.

"Vengeful Laurel Arrow!" the other cried, releasing the arrow from her bow. A dark kind of energy surrounded it as it shot through the vacuum of space.

Both senshi were able to move out of the way of the other's attack. The enemy drew another arrow from her quiver as Callisto retrieved her javelin. Again the enemy sent an arrow flying through the vacuum of space, and again Callisto dodged it. She stretched out both hands in front of her and shot out a large bolt of electricity at her opponent. Her enemy was not so lucky this time; the electricity managed to strike her foot as she tried to move out of the way.

Callisto's victory was short lived, however. The arrow shooting enemy's friends had decided to join the fray when their comrade was struck by Callisto's attack. One of them, dressed in green, carried a whip, while the other, clad in saffron, held a pair of golden scissors in her hand. The scissor carrying one attacked first.

"Atropos' Incision!" she shouted. She snipped her scissors and a wave of orange energy blast forth.

The wave of energy caught Callisto in her javelin arm, cutting her deeply. She swore loudly, but managed to keep hold of her weapon. "Bloody motherfu-" she swore to herself as she readied for the next attack. "Electromagnetic Field Enclose!" The field of electromagnetic energy had captured the green whip wielder, but not the other one. 'Damn…where is she…?" Callisto thought as she looked around for the scissor carrier.

"Decided Fate: Defeat." A voice said in her ear, as the sound of scissors snipped over her head. Callisto turned swiftly, javelin positioned to stab, but the enemy was too fast. Another wave of orange energy hit her, which made her lose concentration on the electromagnetic enclosure. The green whip wielder was now free and grabbed hold of her purple companion. Callisto was too injured by the scissor carrier's attack to stop them. As the enemies flew off towards the center of the solar system, Callisto alerted the others to what had happened. The others, upon hearing from Callisto, left their posts and began to rapidly return towards Earth.

"Mercury, it's Ganymede. The enemy has breeched the Oort cloud and is heading towards Earth. We're on our way." Ganymede said into her communicator as she sped towards the solar system. The blue planet was in sight, but she couldn't see or sense anyone. Mercury had not responded to Ganymede's dispatch, which worried her. 'Damn it all…they couldn't already be there, could they?' she thought.

The enemy, in fact, was already on Earth by then, causing the senshi at the palace a good deal of trouble. Sailor Ganymede's message went ignored by Mercury, as she was in the middle of fighting at the time. There were only three of them, but she was amazed at how they were able to keep her and the others, eight in total, on the defensive. At the moment, Mercury and Mars were engaged in combat against the green clad enemy senshi. Sailor Mars attacked with her Burning Mandala. The green clad enemy avoided most of the attack, but she was quickly ambushed by Mercury's Shine Aqua Illusion. This hit head on, but did little damage. Beyond them, the Sailor Quartette struggled against the scissor-wielder. She laughed manically as she dodged their attacks. Snipping her scissors over their heads, the Quartette instantly fell to the ground.

"My legs! I can't move them!" Sailor Pallas cried. She pulled on her legs, but they remained lifeless.

"We don't need our legs to attack magically!" Sailor Juno shouted angrily, raising her arms into her attack position.

"Amazones Jungle Arrow!" They screamed together. The scissor-wielder was unprepared for their attack and was struck directly by it. She collapsed to her knees, glaring at the Quartette. However, their victory was fleeting. A gust of purple-black energy blasted the Quartette, leaves of laurel surrounding them. Shortly after that they began to argue with one another and trying to hurt each other. The purple clad enemy, who had sent the attack, smiled to herself before returning to her battle against Sailor Venus and Sailor Jupiter.

"These guys are strong." Jupiter commented to Venus as they attacked. Venus nodded in agreement.

"I hope the others get here soon, we need their help." She said.

Not long after she spoke, Venus could sense the approach of six senshi. She figuratively held her breath in hopes that it was Pluto and the others and not reinforcements for the enemy. Her fears were put to rest when a ball of bright purple energy slammed right into the enemy her and Jupiter were facing. Venus recognized Pluto's Dead Scream attack, but she turned around to see regardless. The senshi that had been in the Oort cloud quickly separated and went to assist who ever was closest to them.

"Good of you to show up." Jupiter said a little humorously as Sailor Europa and Sailor Io ran up to join them.

"Callisto had sustained injuries. We needed to make sure she was fit to continue fighting." Europa informed her seriously. "Where are the Queen and King? Are they and the Princess safe?" she asked.

"Yes. They are inside the palace. There's no need to worry about them so long as we defeat these people." Venus said.

"Good. With us here now, this skirmish should be over soon." Io said as she scanned the ongoing fray. She drew her sword from her side and readied herself to fight. The others did the same and they all charged into the strife.


	10. Chapter 10

Once again Princess Lady Serenity found herself watching her friends fight to protect her family from the safety of the palace. Her parents and the senshi had decided that since the enemy might be trying to kidnap a member of the royal family, it would be best if she didn't assist them. The Princess understood their concerns, but she was still annoyed. She could take care of herself, she fumed to herself. It wasn't like when she was back in the twentieth century; she had gotten much stronger and was a capable fighter. Anger and pain clutched at her heart as she watched her friends and protectors risk their lives for hers.

'You know what? Screw it. I'm not a little girl anymore; I can make my own decisions.' She thought. 'Everyone wants me to become a better senshi, but they hardly let me fight. And they need me out there. One more solider could make so much difference!'

She glanced around. There was no one around her, not a maid or anyone. Grasping her compact tightly, Princess Lady Serenity stealthily made her way to one of the side entrances of the palace. These side entrances were often used by the palace staff to get from the grounds to various places inside the palace easily. Long ago the Princess had discovered that they also made wonderful ways to sneak, undetected, from the palace.

"Pink Moon Crystal Power! Make Up!" she cried once outside as she thrust her compact into the air. Pink light surrounded her as she transformed into her fuku. After her transformation was complete, Sailor Chibi Moon rushed to help the other senshi.

"Is that the Princess?" Sailor Jupiter asked with alarm when she spotted the pink senshi in the near distance. The enemy she was fighting took advantage of Jupiter's distraction to attack. "Damn it!" she grunted under the force of the blow.

"What are you doing here?!" Venus yelled.

Sailor Chibi Moon stopped running. She swallowed hard; Venus angry could be a scary thing. "I'm here to do my duty as a senshi!" she yelled back firmly. Chibi Moon knew she had to stand her ground or there would be no chance for her to help. She was going to say more, but the purple clad enemy charged at her. The attack missed, although the impact of it threw Chibi Moon into the air. Quickly she stood up, her staff appearing before her. "Moon Princess Halation!"

"See, I can do this!" Chibi Moon said after her counterattack successfully struck the enemy senshi.

"This is not the time to be arguing. Princess, for your own safety, we need you to return to the palace." Sailor Io said. "There is no question about your ability to do this or not, this is about us needing to protect you from potentially being kidnapped." As she spoke, one of the other enemies hurled an attack Io's way, but it was swiftly countered with her lava dome shield. "Now, Princess."

"But –!"

"NOW."

Sailor Chibi Moon grumbled to herself however turned to leave. The scissor-wielding senshi produced a metal box from out of nowhere; she pressed a button on it and a laser beam of light shot forth from it, aimed directly at Chibi Moon. The Princess stared at the approaching beam, frozen to the spot. She dimly felt someone push her out of the way, but was unable to see who it was.

"Damn, I missed!" The scissor-wielder exclaimed in frustration.

"It's all right. It's good enough for right now." The green clad one said. "Let's go." She vanished from sight. The scissor-wielder and the purple clad one followed suit, leaving the senshi alone on the battlefield.

"Is…is that it?" Mercury asked.

Mars sighed, "It appears so. We need to report back to the Queen and King. And take care of our injuries." She added after she saw Callisto limping badly towards the palace.

"Princess, what were you doing? You could have gotten killed or taken by them!" Venus scolded.

"You all could have gotten killed too. I'm a sailor senshi; it's my job to protect my home!" Chibi Moon retorted.

"And it's our job to protect you. These people were after a member of the royal family. You just so happen to be part of that family. We understand your frustration, but in situations like this you need to let us do our job." Venus sternly replied. She sighed. "Are you hurt at all?"

"I'm fine." The pink senshi answered."You guys look a little worse for wear, though."

"Yes, well, they were stronger than anticipated. We should be getting inside and take care of ourselves as Mars said." Io said. "I'm glad you are unhurt, Princess, but please do not put yourself at risk like that again." She said as she walked past Chibi Moon.

The senshi went to the infirmary to treat their wounds. The King and Queen met them there to find out what had happened.

"Thank goodness you're all alive though." The Queen said after they reported what happened. "And more or less ok."

"Small Lady, what did you hope to accomplish by sneaking out of the palace when you were told not to?" the King asked his daughter.

The Princess answered, "I just wanted to help. Everyone's always risking themselves for me, even though I'm also a senshi. I know it's the duty of the Guardians and the Quartette to protect me but I'm strong enough to fight too."

"Yes, you are strong enough to fight, but as I said earlier, this was not about your capabilities, but rather keeping you safe from abduction." Io said. "If it were any other battle, I would have insisted you fight with us. Ow." She glared at the nurse who pulled her bandage too tight.

"Hey, I hate to ruin the little moment you have going on or whatever," Sailor Uranus said from her bed, "but aren't you guys a person short? Where's that Europa girl?"

"What do you mean? She's…" Jupiter started. She looked around the room for the grey senshi, but she was nowhere to be seen. "Not here I guess…"

"She was with us outside." Venus commented. "Did anyone see where she went?"

"To be honest, I haven't seen her since she pushed the Princess out of the way of that laser." Io said.

"She pushed me? Oh no, that means she got hit by it! She may still be out there, hurt!" Small Lady exclaimed. She turned to rush out but Pluto caught her by the shoulder.

"I don't think she's outside, Small Lady." She said. "Sailor Io, you were closest, what do you recall happened when the laser was fired?"

Io thought for a moment. "Well, it was aimed directly at the Princess, but Europa was quick enough to get her out of the way and took the hit herself. Then there was a flash of light…and then nothing." She looked at Pluto, "Are you implying that…?"

"Yes. I believe that that was no ordinary offensive laser. I think it was something to trap the Princess and make off with her. Only they got Europa instead." Pluto said.

"That poses a problem." Ganymede said thoughtfully. "Granted Europa is capable of taking care of herself, but we don't have any means of getting her back at the moment."

"At least it wasn't the Princess. Or the Queen. Or the King." Callisto called from across the room where a doctor was treating her.

"True, however I was hoping we would have any sort of hostage situation, regardless of who it was being kidnapped." Ganymede replied.

"You three are being awfully calm for just finding out that your teammate has been captured." The King commented, a touch of anger in his voice.

Ganymede glanced over at him, "This isn't the first time we've been in a situation like this. Getting overly emotion does nothing to help. Besides, Europa can handle just about anything short of death. She's resilient like that." She bit the knuckle of her index finger, "If only we had a line of communication with them. That would make this much easier."

"Perhaps some of our allies throughout the galaxy know of some way. I'm going to start asking around." Mercury said as she left the room.

"When did we get allies from around the galaxy?" Io whispered to Mars.

"Sometime after the creation of Crystal Tokyo. The planets that had been restored after the Queen defeated Galaxia began to make contact with us and we've made a few alliances and friendships with them." Mars answered. "Was the Silver Millennium of Queen Serenity isolated?"

Io nodded, "Generally. We are a bit of a backwater star system. The Ginzuishou was really the only reason anyone ever bothered us. But this is good. A network of allies is helpful."

"It is. Let's hope that they can help us find your teammate." Said Mars.

* * *

A note to any readers I have: I'm sad to say that this **might** be the last chapter for awhile. I'm not stopping the story or anything, but due to financial reasons I may not have internet access for, well, probably a long time. I will continue to write new chapters, I just don't know when I'll be able to put them up. Tomorrow I should find out whether or not I still have internet, so fingers crossed!


	11. Chapter 11

"We didn't get that pink haired princess." The scissor-wielder complained.

"No, but we did get one of their soldiers. And if what the Empress told us is true, the Moon people will go to any lengths to get her back." Said the purple one.

"Atropos, Veive. Hurry or we'll miss the wormhole." The green clad one said.

"Coming, Furrina." Veive, the one in purple said as she sped up her pace.

Atropos, the scissor-wielder, shook the little metal box in her hand as she too sped up. "Why can't we just kill her and be done with it?"

"Because we need leverage. This woman gives us that." Furrina explained. "The Empress may try to propose a trade or threaten this woman's life or something to get her hands on that jewel. Wormhole ahead. Get ready."

A gaping hole ripping the fabric of space opened in front of them. The three flew into it, only to instantly appear in a different part of space. A sailor senshi in blue appeared before them.

"The Empress wishes to see you and know how you fared." She said to the three.

"Hello to you too, Clotho. Yes, no doubt she does. We're on our way." Furrina said dismissively. She and the others flew past her, Atropos waving slightly as she passed.

They traveled a short distance to a massive planet. After they passed through the atmosphere, they landed in front of a large stone castle. Guards at the front opened the door for them. They followed a long, ornately decorated hallway, passing suits of armor, tapestries depicting epic battles, and portraits of severe looking aristocrats, until they reached a grand metal door covered in jewels. There were more guards and they opened this door as well for the three to enter. The room they entered was just as richly decorated as the hallway. At the far end of the room was a majestic looking throne, intricately carved and encrusted with jewels.

On this throne sat an almost impossibly tall woman. She played with a stand of her cream colored hair, which flowed down from the elaborately arranged pile of it on her head, a look of boredom etched into her elfin features. When she noticed the three senshi standing in the door way, she perked up instantly.

"Ah, my sailor senshi! Come in, come in." she said brightly. "Were you successful in your quest?"

The senshi walked forward to the throne, kneeling before it when they had reached the appropriate distance.

"I'm sorry to say, my Empress, that we did not capture a member of the royal family of the Silver Millennium." Sailor Veive said. "However, we did manage to take one of their senshi." She added hurriedly when the Empress' expression began to darken.

The Empress sighed. "Well, I suppose that's ok. At least we have something of importance to them that we can use to get the object I desire. All right, let's see her." She ordered.

Atropos took out the metal box and pushed a button. Again, a beam of light burst from it, but this time it released its captive. Sailor Europa now lay unconscious on the floor. The Empress stood up from her throne and knelt beside Europa.

"My, she's a sweet looking one." The Empress said, brushing back Europa's bangs. "Why is she not awake? Did you injure her before her capture?"

"Sailor Atropos shook the box." Veive said dryly. Atropos snickered, not denying what she had done.

"I wish you hadn't. Now I have to wait to speak with her. Guards, take our captive to the cells until she awakens. Don't forget to restrain her; I'll not have her blowing up my dungeon." The Empress commanded.

A guard stepped forward and gathered Europa's unresponsive form into their arms. "Wait a moment." The Empress said before the guard left. She held her hand over Europa and muttered a few words under her breath. Europa's fuku disappeared and replaced with a simple black dress. The Empress then took the daggers from Europa's bun, causing her hair to fall loosely around her. "Mustn't let her keep her weapons." The Empress winked playfully at the guard before shooing them.

"Do you have anything else for us to do, my Empress?" Veive asked.

"No, I don't believe I do. You may go."

The three senshi stood, bowing to their Empress before leaving the room. The Empress sat back on her throne; thoughts turned to what she would do next to get what she wanted.

* * *

'Ugh…my head.' Europa thought as she slowly regained consciousness. She went to rub it with her hand, but found them unable to move very far. Her eyes snapped open in a panic. Looking toward where she felt her hands to be placed, she saw that she was shackled to a stone wall. Confused, she examined her surroundings. She found herself to be in a small dark room, a door of iron bars across from her.

'A prison cell.' She concluded. 'I must have been captured…' She shifted her body so she was no longer sitting on her legs. Her movement caused some of her hair to brush against her face. 'Hair? Why is my hair down? …and why am I not in my sailor fuku?' A cold fear settled in her stomach at the thought of someone undressing her and putting on the black dress she now saw adorning her. 'Must. Not. Panic. Think of something else…yeah… like where the hell I am.'

A guard poked their head around the wall to peer into the cell. "Oi! She's awake! Tell the Empress!" They called out to someone.

'Empress? Oh damn. I hope I'm on some ship or something near the Sol system and not all the way in her empire.'

"You keep still. No messing around when the Empress arrives. I'll expect you to be respectful and on your best behavior." The guard said to Europa. She made a face at them when they turned away.

A few minutes later a woman, whom Europa took to be the Empress judging by her appearance, came into sight. She was pleasant looking, her grey eyes held some mirth in them.

"I am glad to see you awake. I hope you have not suffered too much discomfort at the hands of my soldiers." The woman said. "You're probably wondering who I am and why you're here. Well that's natural. I am Empress Tiamat, ruler of the Marduk system, and you are here quite by accident. I'm sure you're aware of our plans to acquire a member of your royal family and all that. Unfortunately we got you instead. Though you're a lovely prize, it's not what I wanted. What is your name by the way? I can't just keep referring to you as 'prisoner' or whatever." Europa remained silent. "Not going to talk, are you? Hmm…you must still be in shock about being captured. Completely understandable. Not to worry! I'll be getting in contact with your people soon enough, I can find out your name then. In the mean time, this is where you will remain while you are in my care. Guard, when I leave, adjust the restraints so her arms aren't above her head; it looks so uncomfortable." Empress Tiamat said. She waved at Europa as she left.

The guard who had spoken to Europa unlocked the cell and entered. They undid the locks holding the chains of the restraints up on the wall and reconnected them to two small metal loops on the ground by Europa's sides. The Empress was right; it was more comfortable that way. Europa instantly felt a pressure she hadn't been aware of until then release from her shoulders. After securing the chains the guard left the cell and locked the door once more, leaving Europa alone.

'Well, I guess this isn't too bad.' She thought. 'Could be much worse; though we'll see how things develop…might need to work on getting out of here on my own. Bah. Whatever. At least I know the Princess is safe.'


	12. Chapter 12

Empress Tiamat sat down on her throne. She barked out an order for someone to bring her her mirror. Normally she didn't speak to the servants like that, but her new prisoner annoyed her. She didn't like the defiance in the woman's eyes, the stubborn set of her jaw. No one had ever looked at Tiamat that way in her whole life. There was no reason to; she was a fair and just empress, no one in her star system had ever any reason for defiance. Tiamat also didn't like that she couldn't get the prisoner's name. Not knowing who someone was was a personal pet peeve of the Empress; it got under her skin when she didn't know a person's name.

'No matter, I'll get her name soon enough.' The Empress thought as a servant set a large ornate mirror in front of the throne. She said a few phrases in an archaic language and flicked her hand toward the mirror's surface. It rippled like water for a moment before settling and showing the face of a pretty blue haired sailor senshi who was staring at Tiamat with a look of surprise.

"Hello there. I would like to speak to your Queen." Tiamat said sweetly.

The senshi regained her composure quickly. "Who are you? No one speaks to the Queen without clearance."

"I am the Empress of the Marduk system. I have your senshi."

"Who is it?" a voice off to the side asked the blue haired senshi, who's eyes had gone wide at Tiamat's proclamation. An olive-skinned senshi's face appeared in Tiamat's mirror. This one glanced briefly at the Empress before disappearing again. "Huh. Thought our enemy would be uglier. I'll go get the Queen."

"Callisto, wait!" the blue haired senshi called after the other. She sighed. "I guess then the Queen will be right with you."

"Excellent." Tiamat beamed brightly.

Neo-Queen Serenity shortly appeared in the mirror. She gazed impartially at the Empress, no emotion showing in her blue eyes. "Who are you?" she asked.

"My name is Tiamat. As I said to your senshi, I am the Empress of the Marduk system. You are Neo-Queen Serenity?" Tiamat said.

"Yes, I am she. I was told you have my senshi." The Queen said coolly.

Tiamat nodded. "I do. I assure you it was a complete accident, her capture. I was really after you or someone from your family."

"How do I know you really have her and that she is alive? You could just be capitalizing on our situation to further your own needs." Serenity asked, ignoring Tiamat's comment about who was the truly intended captive.

"Ah, good point. I suppose you would like to see her. Give me a moment." Tiamat closed her eyes in concentration as she spoke to herself in a strange language. The air in front of the throne sparkled like fireflies, the shape of a woman slowly taking form. Europa materialized there. The prison cell shackles were still around her wrists. A guard gathered up the chains and handed them to Tiamat. "You see? Here she is, safe and sound. You may speak to her if you wish." The Empress said.

The Queen looked displeased at the Empress for a moment before shifting her attention to Europa. "Are you all right? They haven't hurt you or anything, have they?"

"I'm ok, Your Highness. No one's hurt me." Europa answered. "Is the Princess unhurt?"

"Yes, she is unharmed. Thank you for protecting her."

Europa blushed from the Queens thanks. "I was just doing my duty, there's no need to thank me. I'm glad to know she is all right."

Empress Tiamat tugged on the chains, pulling Europa closer to her. "Enough. I'm going to get straight to the point. I want the Ginzuishou. You want your senshi. I don't think I have to spell it out any further for you to understand where I'm going with it."

"A trade is what I'm assuming you're proposing." Neo-Queen Serenity said.

"Don't do it, Your Highness. I'm not worth that." Europa said quickly.

Tiamat pulled again on the chains, roughly this time, causing Europa to fall painfully against the throne. "Exactly what I'm proposing. I know it's a very big decision to make, so I don't expect an answer right away." Tiamat said. "Oh, by the way, what is this young lady's name? She hasn't told me it."

"Her name is Sailor Europa. How long do you plan on giving us to make a decision?"

"Europa…pretty name for a pretty girl. I'll give you three days to weigh your options and come to a choice. I'll contact you same time three days from now." With that Tiamat cut off the communication. The guard that brought the mirror out took it away.

"You're a horrible person." Europa said venomously.

"Perhaps. But I get what I want and I stop at nothing to get it." Tiamat said mildly. "Your queen better choose wisely. I'm quite serious about your life being on the line. If she doesn't give me the Ginzuishou, I will take your life. Or, at least that's what usually happens to my subjects. Maybe you'll be strong enough to survive. We'll just have to see."

Europa looked warily at the Empress. "Survive what? What are you going to do to me, besides kill me, if Neo-Queen Serenity doesn't give you the Ginzuishou?"

"That's for me to know and for you to find out." Tiamat replied mischievously. She waved over a guard. "Take the prisoner back to her cell. I've finished with her."

"That is an awfully generous amount of time, my Empress." Sailor Furrina said. She watched the guard take Europa away.

"Yes, I know. But this is a very big decision. I'm confident with this though. It would take them longer than three days to travel here, so I don't have to worry about them storming the castle and taking this one back." Tiamat gestured to Europa. "I am tired now. I will be in my rooms if anyone needs me."


	13. Chapter 13

"What a bitch." Callisto said bluntly. The Empress had just cut off the connection between her and Neo-Queen Serenity.

"That's one way of putting it." Serenity drily said. The Queen rubbed her temples. This was the worst possible situation. "What am I going to do…" she muttered to herself.

"Well you certainly can't give her the Ginzuishou." Io remarked.

"But we can't let Europa die." Mercury reminded her.

"Our lives aren't that important. The Ginzuishou and the Queen trump them by a lot." Io shrugged. "Europa would say the same thing if she were here." She added in response to the shocked looks on the other senshi's faces.

"Well she isn't here so we just have to take your word for it, don't we?" Venus spat angrily.

Io narrowed her eyes at the blonde senshi. "Is there a problem?"

"Yes, there's a problem! Your teammate is being held hostage with her life on the line and all you can say is that her life isn't important? What is with that?" She cried. "You can't just leave your teammate out to hang without even trying! It's just…just wrong! It's like you don't even care about her!"

"Well I'm sorry that we don't work like you. Our duty to the Silver Millennium is something we put above everything else; it's our entire reason for being. Any of the four of us would give our lives for that without a second thought." Io snapped back.

"We would too, but we wouldn't leave a teammate to just die! We're not that cold-hearted." Countered Venus.

"Fighting isn't going to fix this. Both of you need to calm down." Endymion said sternly. The two women glared at each other. "I think what would be best is for Serenity and I to talk and think about this for awhile, to come up with some kind of plan. I know it's pointless to tell you all to just go and not worry about it, but everyone should do something to unwind or something. We're all tense and agitated right now and we're no good like that. Venus, Io, you two especially need to release your aggression. Serenity and I will call you all back here when we have something figured out." He took hold of his wife's hand and led her out of the room.

Callisto stretched lazily. "I know this sounds ridiculous, but I'm hungry. Anyone else want to get something to eat? Mercury?"

"…I guess I could eat something." She answered.

"Good! I'd hate to be the only one being ridiculous. Let's go." Callisto clapped her arm around the other senshi's shoulders and proceeded to usher her away. The others slowly left the room to await the decision of their King and Queen. Venus and Io shot one more dirty look at each other before leaving.

Venus fumed silently to herself as she walked down the hallway toward her room. She just couldn't wrap her mind around how those three thought. To let a teammate die just like that was a foreign concept to the senshi of love. And that Io wouldn't even try to think of a way to get her teammate back only made Venus more mad.

She was just making up her mind to not think about Io and her infuriating outlook on the situation when she heard a noise down the corridor she was passing by. Venus glanced over to see Ganymede sitting beneath a window with her knees pulled up and her face buried in her hands.

"Um, are you ok?" Venus asked hesitantly.

Ganymede raised her head to see who was speaking to her, revealing a tear-stricken face. She narrowed her eyes when she saw who it was. "I'm fine." She said shortly, wiping her eyes on her gloves. She sniffled a bit.

"You don't look fine to me." Retorted Venus. She walked over to the other senshi and sat down next to her.

"I don't care what it looks like to you. Besides, what do you care? You don't like me and the others anyways."

"That doesn't mean I'm going to be a bitch and ignore you when you're crying. Is it about Europa?"

She nodded. "I don't want to let her die. I want her to be back with us, safe. The Silver Millennium is our life, and we would give our lives up without a second thought for it and the Queen, but I don't want to have to. Europa…she's like a sister to me." Tears started to fall down her face. "I know you think none of us care, but we really do."

Venus gazed at the trident-wielding senshi, marveling at how open she was being with her. "…I'm sorry I said that. I was…I was angry. It was wrong of me to make such a rash judgment of you and your team."

"It's ok. We haven't really given any reason for you to trust us. I don't blame you for seeing us as cold-hearted." Ganymede sniffed. She was quiet for a moment before breaking down into sobs. "Oh gods, I'm scared. It's happened before, lots of times, but it never gets any easier to deal with."

Wrapping her arms around Ganymede, Venus tried to console the weeping senshi "We're going to get her back. It's going to be ok." Venus assured her. She let the other senshi cling to her, holding her while she cried. They stayed like that for a long time.

* * *

It was late when the King and Queen called the senshi back into the communication room.

"We have a plan." Serenity said when all the senshi were in the room. She looked to Endymion to continue.

"We're going to send a small team to where this Empress is and try to get Europa back. She's given us three days to think her ultimatum over and we're going to use that time to get there, get Europa, and get back home." The King explained.

"How're we going to get there?" Jupiter asked. "Ganymede had said earlier that we only knew the general area where they were from."

"Through a wormhole. We asked Pluto if she had felt any disturbances within Space that could have been the three senshi who attacked us. While it's harder to track unusual movements through Space than through Time, Pluto was able to find a nearby wormhole that had recent activity. We believe that's how they are able to travel from their star system to ours." Endymion answered.

"The only unfortunate thing is that we don't really know where this wormhole ends at. But given how little time passed between Europa's capture and Empress Tiamat contacting us, we think it ends directly at their planet." Added Pluto.

"Who's going?" inquired Mars.

"We hadn't decided that yet." Serenity said. "We have an idea, but Endymion and I want to hear who you all think should go."

Mars looked around at the others. "I think Ganymede and her team should go, since it's their teammate and this is the sort of thing they have experience with."

"I second that. Though I think one more person should go with them. A team of four would be best." Mercury added. The others nodded in agreement.

Sailor Saturn stepped forward. "I volunteer to be the fourth person, if no one objects."

"I don't think any of us object." Ganymede said. She looked at Io and Callisto who shook their heads. "Having the senshi of silence with us would defiantly work to our advantage if we get caught. Your Highnesses," she turned toward Serenity and Endymion, "when do you propose we leave for this venture?"

"We still have a few more tests to run on this wormhole, so first thing tomorrow would be best." Endymion replied.

She nodded, "All right. I think it would be in our best interest to come up with some sort of strategy. Ladies? If you would." Ganymede gestured toward the door. Her, Io, Callisto, and Saturn left to strategize.


	14. Chapter 14

It was early in the morning when Ganymede and the other three senshi awoke to begin their mission. The royal family and other senshi had woken as well, to see them off. Pluto brifed the four on what would happen and what they should expect once they got on the other side of the wormhole.

"Now, I don't know what kind of entrance you guys are planning on making when you get there, but it would probably be wise to keep quiet and undiscovered until you reach the Empress' palace." Pluto was saying as she gave Ganymede the coordinates of the wormhole.

"We figured we'd be as incognito as possible, given the Empress doesn't know what we're doing." Saturn replied.

Ganymede nodded, "Yes, but we're ready in case she suspected we'd pull something like this and tries to ambush our little rescue mission. Hopefully we'll be back before the three day period she gave us is up."

"Good luck." Serenity said to them as they readied to teleport themselves. There was a flash of light and they were gone.

* * *

Just outside the Oort cloud, the senshi reappeared.

"The wormhole should be just a few meters that way." Ganymede said, pointing in front of them.

"It's too bad our teleporting doesn't get us farther than the Oort cloud." Callisto commented casually. "It'd be nice."

"We're not going that much further. Quit complaining." Io admonished. Callisto stuck her tongue out at her teammate.

They propelled ahead in general silence. Soon they came to the coordinates Pluto had given them.

"Well…I don't see anything. You guys?" remarked Callisto.

"Maybe it only opens at certain intervals." Saturn suggested as her eyes scanned the empty space.

"Possible. But we don't exactly have time to spare." Ganymede said. "There has to be some way to activate it…" she muttered to herself, biting her knuckles in thought. A few pieces of frozen ice and rock floated by. As they passed to the right of the group of senshi, a swirling hole appeared in the vacant area. "That must be it! Quick, before it closes!"

Ganymede and the others made their way to the wormhole speedily. As they entered the hole, there was an odd sensation, as if something hooked itself into their abdomen and roughly pulled. The journey through the wormhole was instantaneous. Before them was no longer empty space dimly lit by the light of their sun, but a large green planet and three moons. Looking around for any sign that they had been detected, Ganymede gave a silent signal to Callisto, who nodded. A small ball of electricity appeared in her hand before expanding around the four of them.

"What did you just do?" asked Saturn.

"Created a distorted electromagnetic field around us. Prevents us from being seen by the naked eye." Callisto answered gleefully.

"Interesting. How long will this keep us covered?"

"As long as I'm able to maintain it. Providing we don't trip any radar sensors or anything, we should be able to get to the Empress' palace completely unseen."

"And preferably unheard." Io said in a reproaching manner. "This isn't sound proof. The enemy can still hear us if we talk. We keep quiet until we reach the planet's surface and attempt to blend in. Now shush."

Concealed within the distorted magnetic field, the senshi cautiously made their way down to the green planet. They made it to the planet's atmosphere without incident. Upon entering the atmosphere, however, a sudden alarm sounded. Several sailor-clad senshi appeared without warning, surrounding the unseen intruders. Without waiting to call out the intruders, the senshi unleashed a number of attacks on the intruders with bright flashes of light. When the light subsided, a large rock floated in place where the intruders were.

Inside the rock, Sailor Ganymede gave another silent signal. The four Sol senshi burst forth from the protective rock shield and let loose their own volley of attacks. The planet's defending senshi were startled, but quickly recovered and again attacked the intruding warriors. Weapons and energy attacks clashed in a frenzy of fighting. Slowly the planet's senshi gained the upper hand, having more warriors to fight than the Sol senshi.

Seeing this, Ganymede used the only attack she hadn't taken advantage of since her and the others started fighting. "Blood Marionette!" she cried. The influence of her assault spread wide, taking hold of many of the opposing senshi. Though it was straining to spread the power over so many targets, Ganymede was able to manipulate them competently. "Go! I'll catch up." She ordered her teammates. The others didn't hesitate to follow her order; they quickly made for the surface of the planet below them. Immediately the senshi that weren't in the grip of Ganymede's attack followed after them; however, Ganymede used the controlled senshi to counter their attempt.

Once the opposing senshi were no longer a problem, Ganymede also made her way to the planet's surface. The planet was just as green as it had appeared in space. A dense forest of trees blanketed the surface; hardly a spot was left uncovered from what Ganymede could see. The areas with no trees were taken up by deep blue lakes or large rocks in strange formations. To the east of her field of vision, Ganymede spied a large impressive building; the Empress' palace she assumed. Around it sprawled a remarkably sized city. Squelching the urge to go directly to the city and its palace, the sailor senshi tried to locate her teammates via communicator watch.

"Where the hell did you guys disappear to?" she asked roughly.

Callisto's voice answered her. "We're by one of the rock thing-ys. Yes, Io, I'm aware that it's technically a geologic formation, but I want to call it a thing-y." Ganymede heard her sigh, "Anyways, I'll shoot a small bolt up so you can find us."

"Wait, that could lead them right—" she spied a bolt of lightning spring from the ground out of the corner of her eye, "—to you…that woman never stops to listen." She muttered to herself as she made her way over.

Her three comrades had stationed themselves beneath an outcropping of stone. Io was already berating Callisto for her lightning bolt, saving Ganymede the trouble. Saturn was scanning the skies for anyone who might have seen the bolt and went to investigate.

"No one's seemed to notice it." Saturn assured Ganymede, her eyes never leaving the sky.

"Good. Now, the Empress' palace is to the southwest of this place. Given how far away it seemed from above and depending on how quickly and quietly we can travel, it should only be a few hours." Ganymede said.

"We'll be using my distorted field, right?" asked Callisto.

"Yes. Which means we'll have to stay close to one another." Ganymede answered. "Once we get to the city, however, it'll be too risky to remain cloaked as such and we'll have to disguise ourselves and blend in as best we can. Getting into the palace will most likely be difficult; if we can't get in covertly, we'll tell them that we're arms merchants and the captain of the guard wanted to see our wares."

"And if that backfires?" Saturn questioned.

"We're four highly trained warriors; I think we'll be ok if the plan fails." Callisto answered her, smiling grimly. Saturn did not look reassured.

"Does everyone understand what we're doing?" the three nodded. "Good. Let's get going. We're racing against time here."


	15. Chapter 15

Europa lay on the floor of her cell, waiting for the guard to come by. She had to time this just right for her plan to work. During her short time as Tiamat's prisoner, she carefully watched the guards, observing when they switched and how many were on duty at a time. Unfortunately for her and her plans, however, she had far less time than she felt comfortable with to properly observe them, but Tiamat's three day period had forced her to move quickly. Her only stroke of luck was that, at least in this prison area, there was only one guard on duty at a time; she was less likely to have to deal with more than that single guard while she executed her escape.

The heavy footsteps of the on-duty guard were coming toward her cell. Taking a deep breath, Europa set her plan in motion. With her eyes half open she watched as the guard stopped in front of her cell and looked in. She saw the shock on the guard's face when they saw the scene she had set: blood dripping from her mouth and wrists, the chains securing her to the floor wrapped around her neck, her chest failing to rise and fall with breath. It had taken her all night and she was in a considerable amount of discomfort, but it had the desired effect. The guard scrambled for their keys and quickly unlocked the cell door. When they leaned in close to check for a pulse, Europa pounced.

Using her legs, she caught hold of the guard's neck and forced them down to the ground. She had put enough pressure on their throat that she didn't have to worry about them crying out for help. The guard struggled unwrap her legs from their neck, forgetting their training in a panic. Placing more pressure on the guard, Europa quickly but carefully removed the chains from her own neck. No need to actually strangle herself while she tried to escape. With the threat of her own strangulation gone and her hands relatively free, Europa tried to subdue the guard. It was difficult, but she was able to remove their helmet and hit them on the head with a loose brick from the wall, rendering the guard unconscious. She took a moment to catch her breath before rummaging around the guard's uniform searching for their keys. Once found, the shackles came off her wrists and onto the guards.

She peeked out of the cell door. No one had heard the struggle. Sighing with relief that this stage of her plan had worked, she quietly shut the cell door behind her and locked it. Now she was faced with the next phase of her plan: disguise herself and get out of the palace. Europa figured the laundry rooms wouldn't be too far away from the dungeon, most palaces she had been in had them a floor or two above where prisoners are kept. Confident in this assessment, she made her way through the dungeon to the entrance. The entrance door was a large, heavily decorated iron bar door. Hugging the wall to the side of the door, Europa could see the guard whose job it was to sit at a desk and make note of who went in and out. She bit her cheek to suppress a snarl of frustration; she hadn't anticipated this. She didn't know the habits of the desk guards, didn't know when they switched or were allowed to leave the desk for any reason. She guessed she'd be ok if she had to confront the guard, her hand to hand combat skills were good enough and she knew how to disarm enemies of any weapon, but she really wanted to avoid a fight if she could.

She waited for what may have been an hour; there was no clock or window in sight and she didn't actually know how they divided time on this planet. The guard at the desk hadn't moved at all during the time she stood there. It was annoying, but it seemed she was going to have to lure the desk guard into the dungeon area and fight them too. As she was devising a way to get their attention without alerting the guard to the fact that she was free, at least not until she was in front of them kicking their ass, the desk guard abruptly got up and left, leaving a triangle shaped sign on the desk. Hardly daring to believe her luck, Europa waited a minute before hurrying to unlock the door and slip out. Still hugging the wall, she shut the door behind her as quietly as she could and quickly tip-toed to the nearby staircase, praying that the desk guard or anybody else wouldn't come down as she went up.

The staircase was luckily deserted and she made her way up and into a hallway undetected. She could smell the faint scent of soap and clean linen from where she was; the laundry room was nearby like she had hoped. Following the scent, she stealthily wandered around the halls, ducking into nooks and closets when people came through, until she found herself at the source of the smell. The room was a large open one, high windows let in light that was supplemented by hanging lamps. The air was steamy and most from the boiling tubs of water and soap where laundry maids washed the dirty fabrics. Crouching down to avoid detection, Europa prowled over to a line of clean clothes hanging up to dry. She looked at her options and took what she figured wouldn't be noticed too easily. Still crouching, she hid behind a large rolling basket as it made its way out of the room.

Quickly she changed into the trousers and shirt she had stolen and left the black dress the Empress had put her in in the closet where she hid. She was about to leave her hiding spot when a thought occurred to her; grabbing the dress, she ripped off enough of it to wrap around her head, hiding the silver-streaked hair that would have given her away instantly.

Sure that the head wrap wouldn't come off easily, Europa left the closet and began to prowl around, looking for a way to the upper levels of the palace. After a while she found another staircase, which led to a kitchen. People rushed about in a frenzy, cooks shouted out orders while others scurried around with foodstuffs in their arms to drop off at this or that cook's station. The commotion had thrown her off her guard a little and she was startled when an intimidating looking man came up to her scowling. A knot formed in her stomach, panic freezing her to the spot; she was sure she was caught and would have to fight her way out of there, but the man merely placed in her arms a covered tray and instructed her to take it to someone's room. Confused as to why he was assigning her this task, she looked around and noticed several busy people in the kitchen wearing the same trousers and shirt as she.

"Didn't you hear me? Get going!" the man said when she didn't move. Snapping to attention, Europa hurried away and out of the kitchen.

When she felt she was a safe enough distance away, and had gotten some direction to the main level of the palace, she discarded the heavy tray on a table in a deserted hallway. The main level wasn't as busy as she'd thought it would be. A few guards strolled along, not paying attention much attention to her. What she assumed was the main door loomed in front of her. It was large, at least two or three stories high and several feet wide, the wood intricately carved with the scenes of epic battles; two smaller doors where to either side of the large one, open so that people could easily come and go under the watchful eye of the guards.

Gathering up her courage, Europa walked confidently to one of the smaller doors. She made her walk purposeful, so as to not appear like she didn't belong and arouse suspicion. The guards at the door watched her carefully, more carefully than she thought was necessary since she was dressed in a palace uniform. One of the guards whispered something to another and motioned to someone behind her. The guards began to walk toward her and she could hear the heavy footsteps of more guards approaching her from behind. She stood perfectly still as they came to her, thinking about how to deal with this snag in her plan. When a hand grabbed her arm from the side, she swung around the guard holding her, startling them enough to let go. The motion of her movement sent the guard falling forward and as he fell, Europa jumped on his back and flipped over the group of guards that had surrounded her. Their response was almost instantaneous and they were on her again in a moment. She fought off most of them, but more guards took their place.

A sharp pain came from the back of her head as she fought her way to the door. She turned around to see what or who had hit her as her vision went fuzzy and her legs started to give way under her. She swore silently to herself as the knowledge that she had failed sunk in as she fell into unconsciousness.


End file.
